CIJAP. XYIIl.] 



JAPAN AND FORMOSA. 



865 



Yesso it is about 200. The island of Sagh alien, however, 

 separated from Yesso by a strait only twenty- five miles wide, 

 forms a connection with Amoorland in about 52° N. Lat. A 

 southern warm current flowing a little to the eastward of the 

 islands, ameliorates their climate much in the same way as the 

 Gulf Stream does ours, and added to their insular position enables 

 them to support a more tropical vegetation and more varied 

 forms of life than are found at corresponding latitudes in China. 



Zoological features of Japan. — As we might expect from the 

 conditions here sketched out, Japan exhibits in all its forms of 

 animal life a close general resemblance to the adjacent continent, 

 but with a considerable element of specific individuality ; while 

 it also possesses some remarkable isolated groups. It also ex- 

 hibits indications of there having been two or more lines of 

 migration at different epochs. The majority of its animals are 

 related to those of the temperate or cold regions of the continent, 

 either as identical or allied species; but a smaller number have a 

 tropical character, and these have in several instances no allies 

 in China but occur again only in Northern India or the Malay 

 Archipelago. There is also a slight American element in the 

 fauna of Japan, a relic probably of the period when a land 

 communication existed between the two continents over what 

 are now the shallow seas of Japan, Ochotsk, and Kamschatka. 

 We will now proceed to examine the peculiarities and relations 

 of the fauna. 



Mammalia. — The mammalia of Japan at present known are 

 forty in number ; not very many when compared with the rich 

 fauna of China and Manchuria, but containing monkeys, bears, 

 deer, wild goats and wild boars, as well as foxes, badgers, moles, 

 squirrels, and hares, so that there can be no doubt whatever 

 that they imply a land connection with the continent. No 

 complete account of Japan mammals has been given by any 

 competent zoologist since the publication of Von Siebold's 

 Fauna Japonica in 1844, but by collecting together most of the 

 scattered observations since that period the following list has 

 been drawn up, and will, it is hoped, be of use to naturalists. 

 The species believed to be peculiar to Japan are printed in 

 italics. These are very numerous, but it must be remembered 



